Three Western Australian environmental activists say they believe that footage provided by the ABC to police under a “compulsory legal process” has likely resulted in them being charged with criminal offences.
The activists were charged on Wednesday in relation to a planned protest outside the Perth home of the Woodside chief executive, Meg O’Neill, in August.
The ABC current affairs program Four Corners was filming with activist group Disrupt Burrup Hub in the days before the incident and were there when police arrested several members of the group outside O’Neill’s home. Those activists were charged in the days immediately after the protest.
But more than three months later, after the ABC complied with a “compulsory legal process” to hand over hours of raw footage captured by the Four Corners crew, three other activists were charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.
In a statement, one of the activists arrested on Wednesday, Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigner Tahlia Stolarski, said police told her she had been arrested due to the release of the Four Corners footage.
The footage has also been included in the police evidence disclosure logs in relation to the activists charged in August, Guardian Australia confirmed. The logs say the material was provided on 17 November but this relates to when the information was provided to lawyers for the accused, not when it was provided to the police.
The ABC has not confirmed it complied with the WA police order for the footage and did not respond to a series of questions about concerns raised by the activists who had been recently charged.
These included claims that the ABC had “completely betrayed” them as they had “capitulated to the same police state they have been documenting in such detail”. The Four Corners program regarding the activists was broadcast on 9 October.
Disrupt Burrup Hub media adviser Jesse Noakes, one of the activists charged in relation to the planned protest in August, said last month that “should the ABC surrender any Four Corners footage to WA police, if any of these people face legal liability or criminal prosecution that will be entirely on the ABC – I hope the ABC management appreciate the full implications of that”.
He said in a statement on Thursday: “The ABC were invited in by the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaign to produce a Four Corners investigation, not a WA police investigation.
“Throughout the production of this story, Four Corners repeatedly told Disrupt Burrup Hub campaigners to trust them.”
An ABC spokesperson said in a statement that “like other media organisations, the ABC from time to time receives compulsory legal processes seeking access to material”.
Although no such suggestion was made by the activists on Thursday, the ABC said “any suggestion that the ABC has disclosed or will disclose material in breach of any undertaking to a confidential source is incorrect.
“As ABC managing director David Anderson has previously stated: ‘We don’t reveal our sources, we never have and never will’.”
The ABC declined to comment on Noakes’ claim that Four Corners staff had made reassurances to the activists and, if so, whether these reassurances were appropriate.
In response to a request for comment, WA police said: “State Security Investigation Group conducted further investigations into an alleged incident in City Beach on 1 August 2023, and as a result of these inquiries, a further three individuals have been charged.”
In a separate matter, O’Neill is expected to appear in a Perth court on Friday to be cross-examined regarding interim violence restraining orders she was granted against four activists after the August protest.
